A few months ago at Chatuchak Weekend Market in Bangkok, i chanced upon an eatery that had humongous plates of large river shrimps at its kitchen area facing the internal road. I didn't have the stomach to eat anything there and made a mental note to return the next time i drop by Bangkok!
I was back five months later and after walking myself crazy at the Weekend Market; it's now the right time to have lunch. What's a right time? To me, it's anytime before and after the peak mealtimes like lunch or dinner.
Seats were located within a confined yet air-conditioned space within Soi 32 of Section 23; as the sign had indicated; the menu would only be given to you when you have seats.
It's a tiny space; the likelihood of knocking into a fellow diner is high, especially you are holding on to bags of shopping! p.s. the air-conditioning wasn't strong enough to cool us down.
Lemonade - in the 'peanuts' comic strip, i often see kids selling lemonade on a hot day and figured a glass of lemonade would be helpful to quench my parched throat. What i didn't expect was that it came in a large teapot! My throat was moisturized even though my taste buds couldn't quite get used to its sourness.
2 in 1 Thai Noodle & Fried Rice - nah, the eye-popping plate of pad thai and fried rice topped with six river shrimps! I am already quite conservative in my spending as this was the cheapest for the range at 1,100 baht (close to S$50)!
The other two options were 1,500 baht and 2,500 baht; while the portion of the rice and noodles remained unchanged, you get comparatively bigger prawns! For the price of 2,500 baht (slightly more than S$100), i would be able to get a large Sri Lankan crab from a restaurant in expensive Singapore.
Now, i can't say i enjoyed the phat thai and fried rice. The former was overly oily with a sourish aftertaste whereas the latter lacked the essential wok-hei to perk us up. It did help the palatability when a ton of eggs were fried together with the rice. p.s. egg lover here.
Furthermore, i think i don't particularly like river shrimps; the supposed prawn taste wasn't as sweet and as intense as expected. Freshness wise, i think it's acceptable and the shells didn't take much effort to remove.
Feeding one to Alex as he is a lazy bum! Anyway, must reward him sometimes as i am the picky one when it comes to travel and it's not easy following my pace.
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Despite our misgivings for the food, the five of us managed to clean up everything! The taste was an obvious letdown, unlike its initial visual appeal, but i was more taken aback by the pricing! For the price we paid for, i could have eaten about ten plates of the superb pad thai from Thipsamai near Wat Saket.
Address
Section 23, Soi 32,
Bangkok, Thailand
Menu
As above.
Pricing
Lemonade - 65 baht
2 in 1 Thai Noodle & Fried Rice - 1,100 baht